


leave all your love and your longing behind you

by Princess_Sarcastia



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Arya is the og wild child living in the woods, Gen, Nymeria's army of wolves, OC Wolves, Training Montage, Warging, until she gets caught
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 16:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18898450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princess_Sarcastia/pseuds/Princess_Sarcastia
Summary: So Arya looks at Nymeria, who is still sitting there, refusing to leave her side, refusing to run and save herself.  Arya who is cold and tired and scared, who doesn’t know what is going to happen to her, looks down at this dire wolf who protected her when her sister didn’t, looks into Nymeria’s eyes and sees a plea there:"Come with me."Or: Arya runs off with Nymeria to live in the woods.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Starts with Game of Thrones s1e2.

Arya listens to the guards grow closer and closer. Yelling, armor clamoring. If she turned around, she’d probably see the lights from their torches.

She doesn’t turn around. Instead, she stares in growing desperation at Nymeria, who refuses to leave her side. Arya knows what will happen to her if they’re caught. She tries everything but yelling, because that will only draw the guards closer: pushing, shoving, angry words. Eventually she starts throwing rocks at Nymeria, trying to force her to run away, to follow her instincts.

‘She’s just a wolf’, Arya thinks, close to tears as she can make out the individual words the guards are calling out. Any moment one of them will get close enough to spot them. And then they will cut Nymeria in half and give her carcass to the butcher. Who knows what the king will do to her; he was supposedly her father’s friend, but Arya knows that father didn’t want to go to King’s Landing, yet here they are, so friendship can’t matter all that much to him.

There is also the fact that she is a child; she is cold and tired and scared and she didn’t mean to hurt the Prince but he had attacked her friend! What was she supposed to do, stand aside and let him? Like Sansa did?

So Arya looks at Nymeria, who is still sitting there, refusing to leave her side, refusing to run and save herself. Arya who is cold and tired and scared, who doesn’t know what is going to happen to her, looks down at this dire wolf who protected her when her sister didn’t, looks into Nymeria’s eyes and sees a plea there:

‘Come with me.’

When the guards come upon the spot she and Nymeria had been hiding in, they are long gone. Arya went with Nymeria, she ran and she ran and she ran, her wolf racing alongside her. I won’t say she never looked back, because she did. But she never once stopped.

 

* * *

 

Needle was abandoned at the campsite, buried in Arya’s packs. Her father finds it weeks later, and when he does he throws his head back and laughs and laughs and laughs, because of course she would.

Arya never meets Syrio Forel; there is no trainer to help her learn to fight with a sword. And that would be pointless anyway, because she no longer has one. He cannot teach her to be agile, or swift, or cunning, or stealthy, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t learn these things.

She learns from Nymeria, and from the wilderness around her. She has to be agile to make it through the woods. She has to be swift and stealthy to catch her food, though Nymeria does most of the work in the beginning. Arya has to be stealthy as well as cunning to avoid the men who travel through the woods: Mercenaries, guards, merchants, soldiers.

Arya also has to be stealthy in order to steal clothes from villages nearby, because her plainclothes weren’t meant to stand up to this kind of abuse. Breaking into places is hard, but she does it, getting food until she learns how to properly cook the things Nymeria brings her, and eventually, how to hunt all on her own.

She’s almost caught quite a few times, in the beginning. But Nymeria is always there, waiting to defend her and help her escape. The people start to tell stories about the wild girl who lives in the woods with a wolf as her protector, like some sort of wildling.

Before long, Arya realized that hunting would be much easier if she had a bow, like the one her brothers had trained with back at Winterfell. So the next time a group of soldier camp out in the woods she calls home, she sneaks into their camp, long after most of them have gone to sleep, and steals a bow, and a quiver full of arrows.

She would have taken one from one of the nearby villages, but, well, most people didn’t carry weapons. Most people couldn’t afford them.

The bow wasn’t perfect. It was too large for her, and the strength required to draw it was almost too much. But it was better than nothing. She spent almost two weeks practicing with it before she could hit anything more than a few yards away, and even then, she missed almost as much as she hit.

Sometimes she wished she were a wolf, like Nymeria was. Then she wouldn’t need weapons; she could just hunt with her teeth and her claws, could track with her nose. Arya even had dreams about it sometimes, ones that were so convincing she almost believed she was a wolf, until she woke.

* * *

 

Arya tore into the rabbit she’d just pulled off the fire; the last two days her and Nymeria’s hunts had turned up almost nothing, and she was ravenous. She was so focused on her food she didn’t notice the shapes creeping up on her camp until it was too late.

Her eyesight, dimmed by the fire, could just make out one, two, three… six of them, creeping foreword, towards her and Nymeria.

It took her a moment to recognize the figures in front of her: wolves. An entire pack of them, from the looks of it. Arya hadn’t ever seen any wolves besides Nymeria; the ones in front of her looked unusually small, until she remembers that Nymeria was a direwolf. She was already a good six inches taller than the ones padding towards them.

Arya inched her hand slowly towards her bow, not sure how the wolves would react to the sudden movement. It didn’t seem to faze them at all, though; they were almost within spitting distance at this point, and their eyes were darting between her and Nymeria, who still lay on the ground next to her.

“Nymeria,” she whispered out of the corner of her mouth, her voice cracking from disuse. She let out a huff that Arya almost labeled a sigh before pushing to her feet, a low growl creeping from her chest. Arya could almost feel it through the ground.

The wolves halted in their tracks, their eyes all on Nymeria now. One of the wolves tensed, its lips peeling back from its teeth in a snarl, but Nymeria simply growled louder and it stopped, its ears pushing back against its skull. The other wolves hung their heads and rolled them to the side, baring their necks.

The challenger (because Arya could recognize that snarl for what it was; she’d had surprisingly similar conversations with her mother) crept foreword until it was right next to Nymeria, who was still growling, and licked her muzzle. Suddenly her growling stopped, and the resulting silence was jarring.

The rest of the pack of wolves moved forward and Nymeria padded among them, nuzzling their flanks while they circled around her, until one by one all of them sunk to the ground. Nymeria laid down next to them, seemingly content, and then turned to stare at Arya expectantly.

Arya stared back uncertainly, not sure what she was supposed to do now, or even what had just happened. Nymeria kept staring at her for a few moments before tilting her head at the open space to the left of her. Did…was she supposed to go lie down with them?

Just as slowly as she had picked it up, Arya set her bow down, and walked slowly over towards the pile of wolves whom Nymeria had just accepted for reasons Arya couldn’t wrap her head around. As she settled down next to Nymeria like she did every night, some of the other wolves flicked their ears towards her in acknowledgement but otherwise did nothing.

Arya’s eyes slowly slipped shut from the warmth emanating from Nymeria and the other wolves, rabbit forgotten; her last coherent thought was that it felt oddly nice, having a pack again, even if it wasn’t really hers.

* * *

 

Arya woke up the following morning thinking it had all been a dream, and was surprised to find herself in the middle of the pack that had crept up on them last night.

She was even more surprised when it kept happening.

Every few nights a new group of wolves would appear, go through the same motions as the first, and then settle with them. Soon it seemed as though dozens of wolves were following her and Nymeria through the woods as they hunted for food, and for a new campsite.

There were so many of them that they didn’t even all stay with them; some of the wolves simply prowled around their sites, sleeping in groups almost a third of a league away. But when they started moving again, the entre pack moved with them.

Whenever Arya hunted alone through the woods, Nymeria having run off to follow a different scent, she would catch glimpses of them moving through the trees around her. Sometimes, they would drive prey her way, so she could hit it with one of her arrows and bring it down. They even left some of it for her, so she could haul it back to the fire and cook it.

Her aim had gotten much better, over the weeks since the other wolves had started finding her and Nymeria. She could hit a rabbit at nearly fifty paces now, while it was running. The bigger animals, like deer, were harder to find but easier to hit. She started to pick up tracking as well, recognizing the paw prints of all the different animals and the signs of their movements through the brush.

* * *

 

It took a while to get used to the howling. The wolves that were furthest away would start it, and then the calls would echo closer and closer until Nymeria herself started howling. It would go on for almost an hour, sometimes.

They called out about fresh kills, too, and if they got lost. At least, Arya thought it was when they got lost; a lone wolf would call out and the rest of them would answer, and then the lone wolf got closer and closer until they burst through the trees and the others came up to surround them.

Sometimes Arya wanted to howl with them. Come find me, I’m right here! she wanted to call out. But she knew that her family wasn’t coming for her. They would never find her here. So she stayed silent, and listened to the wolves around her.

* * *

 

The only wolf Arya could really recognize was the one from the first pack that had joined them, the one that had challenged Nymeria.  
His fur was a russet color, almost like Robb’s hair had been, with streaks of black along its spine and shoulders. His eyes were an unsettling shade of yellow, so bright they seemed to glow in the dark.

Nymeria seemed to like him, at least. They laid down, their flanks pressed together, silently watching the comings and goings of the rest of the pack, and Arya wondered if maybe he was Nymeria’s mate.

One night, she sat next to them as she finished off the second little squirrel she’d caught earlier, and talked with them. Arya would say at them, because obviously they didn’t talk back, but something about the way they glanced at her made her feel like they were really listening.

“You know, you should probably have a name. You’re always sitting around here, and I can’t really just keep referring to you as ‘that one wolf that sort of looks like Robb’, even if its only in my head.” Arya dropped the bones next to her and started to lick her fingers clean, looking at the wolf thoughtfully all the while.

“Ooh, I could just call you Robb,” she said, but as soon as the words left her mouth she dismissed them. It sent a pang of sadness through her every time she said one of her brothers’ names.

“Aegon, maybe? I mean, Nymeria was a queen who conquered Dorne, maybe you should be a conqueror, too.” The name had merit, but it didn’t quite fit in Arya’s mind.

She thought back to the night he had first appeared and another idea struck her. “I know; Torrhen! The king who knelt. It’s a northern name, which fits better ‘cause you’re a wolf, and you sort of knelt to Nymeria when you first met her.”

Torrhen, newly christened, and Nymeria both glanced at her, but they didn’t really seem to have an opinion one way or another, so Arya took that as assent.

* * *

 

Arya crept through the woods, almost as silent as Nymeria, tracking the hoof prints of the doe that had been eluding her for four days now. She’d almost had it yesterday, but then one of the wolves had raced right behind her knees and thrown off her shot.

She usually didn’t go this far from the center of the pack, but it had made her frustrated enough to follow the deer until she brought it down, and the deer had wisely left the woods where the wolves were currently prowling.

The prints were becoming softer and softer, meaning the doe had to be close. Arya quietly slipped her bow off her back and strung it, then pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked it.

The brush in front of her rustled slightly and she smirked, knowing she’d finally caught it, and slowly walked foreword. Suddenly the doe burst from the leaves, racing towards her so fast she didn’t have time to do anything but roll out of the way.

“Seven hells!” Arya growled under her breath. What in the gods’ names could have scared that deer so badly?

“Ah, damn it all. That could have fed almost a third of us tonight!” A man appeared from the same direction the deer had come from, but he froze the second he saw her lying there. In that split second she scrambled to her feet and drew the arrow that by some miracle she hadn’t broken when she fell.

The man was almost as quick, once the shock had worn off, and then they were both standing there, arrows pointed at each other, though where she was angry and slightly scared, he was simply bemused.

“Well, what do we have here?”

“Who the hell are you?” They both said at the same time, amusement leaking into his voice while hers was rough with disuse.

Arya scowled at him, her bow arm still taut. “That was my deer you scared off.”

He laughed. “Well, it wasn’t really your deer, now was it? If it was you’d’ve killed it.”

“I’ve been tracking that doe for four days!”

He looked like he was about to laugh again, but his eyes flicked behind her for a moment and she remembered that men travel in packs, same a wolves, and that maybe this one hunted in a pack, too. So Arya spun halfway around, keeping the archer in her line of sight and spotting the two other men who’d been creeping up behind her.

Arya swallowed the urge to snarl. These weren’t wolves; it wouldn’t be seen as a challenge, as a warning to back off. They’d probably just laugh at her again. She couldn’t scare them off, they were men grown. Unless…

Arya didn’t really want to hurt them. Shooting rabbits and deer and squirrels was a far cry from shooting men. She glanced at the three men again. There. One of the men who’d snuck up behind her. He was standing right in front of a tree, and still enough to make an easy target.  
Without warning, she swiveled in his direction and fired, aiming for the loose cloth along his sword arm. Her feet were moving before the arrow even landed, dashing away from the small clearing and through the trees behind her. As she made her escape she heard curses coming from behind her, and soon after the sound of someone scrambling after her.

If she could just make it to the wolves, she would be safe. It wasn’t too far; it had only been about thirty minutes since she’d last seen one, and that was going all slow and quiet.

Arya recalled how the wolves found their way back to the pack, but before she could even open her mouth an arrow was driving itself into the tree right next to her head. It startled her so badly she stopped, just for a moment, and then it was all over.

* * *

 

Arya bit and scratched and clawed and growled every step of the way, but soon the three men were dragging her into their camp. Her only source of satisfaction was that the men were almost as unhappy with her as she was with them.

A man walked up to them as they pulled her to a stop. She was still squirming and cursing at them, but after they’d tied her hands up with rope and taken her bow and her quiver, there wasn’t much she could do.

“What the hell is this?” The man asked.

“We caught her in the woods, thought we should bring her back.”

“The brotherhood without banners isn’t in the business of kidnapping little girls,” the man said, his displeasure with them clear.

The archer, the one who was currently trying to hold her still, shrugged. “We found her on the hunt, all by her lonesome. It’s a dangerous place for little girls, especially given all the wolves we’ve been hearing around here.”

“I’m not a little girl!” She shouted, still struggling.

The archer laughed again. “Really? Then what are you?”

She turned around and glared at him, her eyes sharper than Nymeria’s. “I’m a wolf.”

His smile slowly slipped away as he studied her face, taking in her haphazard clothing, made up of animal pelts and dirty cloth, and glanced at the bow and arrows the uninjured man was carrying.

“Where are you from, little wolf?” The man who had walked up to them asked.  
Arya turned her glare on him, remaining silent.

He crouched down so they were at eye level. “I promise, we mean you no harm. If you tell us where your home is, I can ensure you’re taken back there.”

Arya stares at his face, her glare fading for a moment.

Home.

She doesn’t even know how long it’s been since she’d seen Winterfell. Months, certainly. Her mother and her brothers are still there, even if Father and Sansa had gone on to court without her. Suddenly there is nothing she wants more than to walk through those gates again, hear her mother scolding and Theon and Robb laughing and Shaggydog terrorizing everyone while Rickon screeched in delight.

Her eyes water and she pushes the tears away roughly, still staring at the man crouched in front of her. For a moment she hesitates; there was no guarantee they would take her home. But then she sees her brothers and her sister again and she can’t get it out fast enough.

“Winterfell. I’m from Winterfell.”

One of the men behind her sniggers. “Right. And I’m the King in the North.”

The man in front of her doesn’t laugh, though, doesn’t even take his eyes off her face.

“And what’s your name, little wolf?”

“Arya. Arya Stark.”

The men behind her aren’t laughing anymore. One of them sputters. “Thoros, you can’t– you can’t seriously believe her? Arya Stark hasn’t been seen since before her father was–”

The man—Thoros—cuts him off. “I can see it; she looks just like Ned Stark. Has the same face.”

The other one starts to protest again, but then the archer speaks up. “Look at the fletching on her arrows: Stark colors. And she did say she was a wolf.”

Arya glances back at her quiver; she hadn’t even thought of that, that the arrows could belong to her father’s men. It didn’t make any sense; why would her father’s men be traveling through the south? She shook off the question; it didn’t matter, not really, not if these men would take her home.

“So, you’ll bring me back to Winterfell?”

The men behind her aren’t laughing and Thoros’ eyes are sad; the wolf inside of her howls.


	2. run fast for your mother (for your sisters and brothers)

Arya sits at the edge of the men’s camp with her knees pulled up to her chest and her head resting in her arms. She stares sightlessly into the forest in front of her, trying to remember the last thing she’d said to her father. To Bran, to Rickon. To Sansa.

She couldn’t. And now they were dead, or lost to the new King and his mother. Her home was gone, too, lost to Theon Greyjoy. Theon Greyjoy, who’d laughingly showed her how to use a bow and arrow. Theon, her brother’s best friend. Theon, her father’s ward.

If Arya ever got her hands on him, she was going to put an arrow through his throat.

Gods, she had been so stupid. Running off into the woods, playing at being a wolf until she’d almost forgotten she wasn’t one, while her family suffered and died, one by one. Maybe if she’d been there, they would still be alive. Or maybe she would be dead, too.

The sun slowly dips down below the trees, and Arya doesn’t move, waiting for…something. For father and mother to walk from the woods and tell her it had all been a mistake, for Jon to come and rescue her from these men, for Sansa to bemoan the state of her hair, something. Anything.

Eventually, Thoros comes over and kneels down next to her. “Come on, you need something to eat.”

Arya ignored him in favor of staring into the woods. After a few moments he sighed and looked off in the direction of her eyes. “You think something’s going to come out of there, child? There’s nothing in those woods but wolves.”

At that, Arya turns her head to look at him, and something kindles deep inside of her. Nymeria. She wants Nymeria.

She scrambles to her feet, then turns and runs in the direction the men had brought her in from. Thoros shouts after her, probably worried about her running off, but she’s not.

When she gets to the edge of the small clearing, Arya comes to a sudden halt. The sky has darkened enough that the fire behind her is enough to dull their vision. She brings her hands up to cup her mouth and Arya howls.

She howls for as long as she can, until her lungs feel empty and they burn, and then she takes in a gulp of air and howls again, up into the sky like she’d seen Nymeria do a million times, to call the pack home.

The archer, Anguy, comes up behind her. “What’re you doing, wolf girl? You don’t really think you’re a wolf, do you?”

Arya ignore him in favor of listening, keeping her ear turned towards the forest, waiting for a reply. Anguy stands behind her with his arms crossed and snorts. After a moment, he turns away making his way back to the fire and shaking his head.

Arya stays, her ear tilted towards the trees. Another moment passes, and another, and just as she is about to turn back, a call answers her. Further away than she’d expected, but still close enough to hear, to recognize her call.

The men by the fire freeze, turning to look at her, then each other. Another wolf takes up the call, and another, and soon Arya can hear almost all of them, calling out to her, to each other, to the sky above them.

“All right, you got what you wanted, they’ll never shut up now,” one of the men calls to her.

Still, she doesn’t move, waiting. The wolves howl, and more of them join in until it feels like the whole forest is teeming with wolves. Suddenly one call rises out above them all, louder, stronger, and the others die off. Nymeria. Arya smiles briefly, and as soon as Nymeria’s call dies off she howls again, almost as long as her wolf did.

The silence rings in her ears when she stops, and Arya turns back to the fire, walking over to sit down next to Thoros. Her face is still downcast, her eyes brimming with anger and grief, but something inside of her has thawed slightly.

The man she’d grazed with her arrow earlier wordlessly hands her part of squirrel they’d roasted over the fire, and the rest of them continue to watch her. Arya ignores them and digs into the rodent, suddenly starving. She never had caught that doe.

* * *

 

It doesn’t take them more than a few days to reach their real camp, the one that houses the Brotherhood Without Banners. Thoros takes her straight to Beric Dondarrion, and Arya slowly takes him in, her eyes hovering over the crudely done eye patch that takes up a third of his face.

“Arya Stark? Hmm, I could see that. Where has she been all this time?” Beric directs his question to Thoros and Arya growls.

“ _She_ has been living in the woods, fending for herself, and she wants to go back to doing that,” Arya says pointedly.

“We can take you back to your family, Lady Stark.” Beric doesn’t crouch down to meet her eyes, and Arya recognizes something in his demeanor that reminds her of Nymeria.

“My father is dead, and my home is gone,” Arya says darkly. “You can’t take me anywhere.”

“Aye, your father is dead, and two of your brothers,” Beric says, easily enough that she wants to rip his face off, “but Robb Stark is marching south, and word is your mother goes with him.”

Arya’s face smooths over. She hadn’t even thought of that. “So you’ll take me to Robb?” She asks.

Beric pauses for a moment. “Right now, your brother’s host marches towards battle with Tywin Lannister, and the Brotherhood cannot get between them; it would mean our deaths if the Lannisters found us first. But as soon as your brother remains in any one place long enough for us to reach him, we will return you to him safely.”

_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Every night, Arya calls out to Nymeria, louder and louder until her throat grows raw, and the men of the Brotherhood have given up trying to stop her.

Every night, Beric and Thoros step out of the bounds of their camp to watch her. Their faces are grave, like they almost know what she’s doing, but aren’t sure enough to say anything about it.

Every night, the wolves in Nymeria’s pack call back to her, their howls filling the darkness until her ears ring and her heart soars and finally, Nymeria herself responds. From the sounds they make, Arya thinks even now, their numbers are growing. How many wolves are there now? A thousand?

As the Brotherhood makes its way across the Riverlands, the pack follows—at a distance, far enough that the men won’t engage. But still. Arya knows her pack will never abandon her.

Not like she abandoned her family.

* * *

 

Anguy drags her out to a makeshift range three weeks into their journey.

“I’m still not certain you could have hit that doe even if I hadn’t found it, too,” he says, smug. Arya wants to rip his throat out, challenge him her way instead of letting him needle her.

Instead, she bares her teeth at him and stares him down until he looks uncomfortable, then picks up the bow he hands her.

“Where’s mine?” She asks, voice still ragged from the night before.

“It was too big for you, little wolf. I’m honestly amazed you could draw it.” He gestures with his hands, indicating how much smaller the recurve of this new bow is. “This one’ll be better, trust me.”

Still wary, Arya slowly pulls an arrow from the pot and knocks it. Her fingers stutter over the string and wood, unused to this new size, and the arrow drops to the ground. She feels the urge to snarl, to be frustrated and annoyed, to throw a fit like the ones she did at Winterfell.

Everything is wrong now. Hunting that doe ruined her life; she would have been better off in the woods with Nymeria, not knowing that—that—

Instead, she closes her eyes and breathes in.

_Don’t think too much, Bran._

Pulls another arrow from the quiver.

_Relax your bow arm._

Opens her eyes, knocks the arrow again.

_Quick, Bran! Faster!_

Releases it, and watches it bury in the middle ring.

“Not bad,” Anguy says, “but not great, either. If you take that long to get it ready in a real battle, you’d be dead.”

In a real battle, she thinks, Nymeria will protect me. But all she says is, “I’ll get better.”

_And which one of you was a marksman at ten?_

Her lips turn up ever so slightly, feeling warmer at the memory of her father and brothers than before.

* * *

 

Twice, the Brotherhood without Banners rides into battle while Arya is their captive, if you can call it that.

Their manner isn’t at all like the great battles in Sansa’s songs, or tales they coaxed out of their father about battles in the Rebellion. Instead, the Brotherhood creeps through the woods and plains to protect smallfolk from the Lannister men who hold no regard for their lives.

Hunting, not fighting. Arya approves.

But even then, they leave some small number of men behind to ensure she’s still there when they get back.  That, Arya doesn’t know how to feel about. Sleeping in a tent with men around her doesn’t feel right.  She longs for fur underneath her hands and head, warming her flank and guarding her rest.

She wants Nymeria.

She wants her family, too, though, and she won’t get them by living in the forest forever.

So, when they ride off to battle, Arya doesn’t sneak away when her minders get distracted, no matter how much the distance between her and the wolves tugs at her heart. Instead, she dreams every night of having paws instead of hands, of blood in her teeth and a thousand wolves kneeling before her, waiting.

* * *

 

As Nymeria’s howl fades into nothing, Arya desperately clings to the feeling it brings her. Every beat of her heart says pack, pack, pack pack, and she almost wants to raise the call again, but that isn’t how it works.

They know where she is; she knows they still follow. Anything else can wait.

Beric regards her solemnly as she turns back from the edge of the clearing, raising a hand to rub the outside of her throat. Men weren’t built to cry out like she does.

“How did you survive in the woods for so long, Lady Stark?”

Arya says nothing. Her voice won’t return until the morrow and she refuses to answer his question besides. Ladies weren’t supposed to become wolves, and she doesn't want to give these men an inch more than she has to.

“Perhaps you heard the story the smallfolk are telling, of the wildling girl who roams these lands with a wolf at her back, keeping any man from getting close enough to touch her.”

Silence.

“With every telling, the wolf gets bigger. Some say it’s the size of their largest hounds; last I heard, it was as big as a small horse, easily large enough to carry men into battle.”

Arya eyes him, wondering what the point of this conversation is.

“They say your brother Robb rides a wolf into battle, too.”

At that, she steps forward, silently creeping into his space. He stands his ground, one eye piercing her narrowed gaze until they stand close enough to reach out and touch each other. Her head tilts back, and his tilts down.

They stare each other down.  Arya doesn’t know what he sees in her, but deep in his eyes, something burns.  Just reflected light from the campfires, probably. Still, her shoulders tense up, as close to raising her hackles as she gets outside sleep.

Finally, he breaks, chuckling. “A wolf indeed, Lady Stark.” He turns back to the raised voices of his Brotherhood. After a moment, she follows, still wary.

The others welcome his presence, and blatantly try to shift away from hers, but she doesn’t pay them any mind, still watching Beric as he settles down next to Thoros.

Food consumes her thoughts soon afterward as the men pass around supper. Even with Anguy’s skill with a bow, game is scarce, and other food scarcer. The whole Brotherhood lives off of the land and the sympathy of the smallfolk they work to protect, and it’s barely enough to keep them alive.

A lone man steps into their circle and walks up to Beric and Thoros, kneeling to speak to them in low tones. As he steps away again, the two men share a silent conversation, like the ones Robb used to have with Jon and Theon. No one quiets, but Arya can see all the others tilt themselves to see and hear the pair better, hungry for news and purpose as much as food.

“Word has reached us that the Stark forces make their way to the Twins; assumedly they need Lord Frey’s men to continue their fight against the Lannisters.”

Her head snaps out of her bowl to meet Beric’s gaze once again, and he focuses in on her with a smile.

“Our original orders and purpose came from Lord Eddard Stark; we follow his mandate to protect the people, even as we’ve made his mission our own. In a few weeks’ time, we’ll convene with his son. Hopefully the new King in the North can spare some supplies for an honorable cause.”

The men cheer and Arya feels her heart begin to pound anew: pack, pack, pack, pack.

I’m going home, she thinks, and her eyes flutter closed.

* * *

 

They ride hard for a week to catch up with Robb’s men. As big as the Stark host is, it moves swiftly over land. If the Brotherhood hopes to make it to the Twins before they depart again for a new battle, they have no choice but to exhaust their horses.

Arya is relegated to sit in front of Anguy, but they finally allow her to keep her new bow with her at all times. Its weight settled against her back goes a long way toward improving her mood, as does her impending reunion with Robb, with Mother.

All the men are restless as they make camp the night before they reach the Twins. It’s earlier than they usually stop, but apparently, there’s a ceremony going on tonight; a wedding. Sending notice of their arrival early tomorrow will cause less trouble than interrupting the wedding tonight.

Tension builds in Arya’s gut as tents are set up and horses tied down, until the hair on the back of her neck is standing up straight. She slowly comes to a stop, her hands stilling on fabric. Tomorrow, her pack is whole again; as whole as it can be, anyway.

So, what’s wrong?

Just as slowly, the sounds of the forest around them start to die out. First the birds, then the bugs; even the wind ceases, and it seems like the Gods are holding their breath, waiting.

Arya moves to the tree line, dodging men who are just now sensing something in the air, hands moving for weapons, everyone’s gaze searching out Beric and Thoros.

Her heartbeat fills her ears in the silence, building and building as she steps past the last of the Brotherhood. Steps between them and the woods.

A noise splits the air like thunder; rolling to meet Arya, weaving around her like armor, like pack; a growl so low it sounds like a storm.

Nymeria fades into view and the men begin to shout, yelling for arms and archers, but Arya can hardly hear them. Her wolf is so much larger than the last time she saw her.  She wonders vaguely if Nymeria was growing so quickly before and she just didn’t notice, but after nearly two moons apart, they’re of a height with each other.

She can feel someone moving up behind her, so she lunges for Nymeria, wrapping her arms around her friend’s neck and gripping her fur tightly. Fur that moves as Nymeria bares her teeth at whoever’s at her back, freezing them in their tracks.

Oh, I missed you, she thinks, and wolf’s breath huffs into her hair.

“Lady Stark,” Beric calls out cautiously. “Is this your wolf?”

Arya clutches at Nymeria a moment longer, then turns to face the men behind her, still keeping her body between the wolf and itchy arrows and swords.

“Her name is Nymeria,” she says, louder than she’s ever spoken in their presence before.

That tension from before is still building, and now her muscles are beginning to clench with it. Frowning, she searches out Beric and Thoros, standing dead center in front of her.

“There’s something wrong,” Arya frowns. Nymeria noses at the back of her neck, so she twists around again. “What’s wrong, girl? I’m going to see Robb and Mother again. I bet Greywind is with them; I bet you missed your brother, too.”

Nymeria’s chest rumbles, so she reaches out and runs a hand over her head. “What’s wrong?” She says again, quieter; Nymeria nudges her in response, tilting her head down until their foreheads meet.

Her eyes fall shut and she breathes. In, out; in, out; in, out.

Nymeria’s eyes close, too, and they breathe together.

In, out; in, out; in, out.

A picture forms in her mind: close walls, iron bars; lights and cheering and in the distance, a river; sweat and steel and battle, but not—the smell before a battle, when men steel themselves and fear of uncertainty fills their hearts; through the bars, she sees a Stark banner ripple in the wind.

As she watches, the wind changes direction, and another coat of arms blocks it from view:

The flayed man.

Shock, dismay; fear, anger, rip tear teeth blood Robb.

“They’re going to betray them,” Arya gasps, and opens her eyes to see Nymeria staring back at her. That’s never—how did she do that? Only in her sleep was she a wolf, and even then, she was only ever Nymeria. But now—

“Who?” Someone says behind her, closer than before, and Arya jumps, still unsettled. Nymeria tenses again under her hands as she turns to see Beric, still clutching his sword but regarding her more seriously than ever.

“Flayed man; the Boltons. There’s something wrong at the Twins. We have to go; we have to go now!” She starts shouting, fear creeping over her. This close to seeing them again, to her pack; she can’t lose them now.

Beric regards her for a long moment and she stares back, helpless. Arya doesn’t know if she and Nymeria can leave if he doesn’t let them.

He turns from her to look at Thoros, who shrugs and laughs, “You’ve done more on stranger tides than these, Beric,” and gestures to the man’s ruined eye.

Beric laughs back, and then turns to face his men, who seem somewhat bewildered. “Brothers! Arm yourselves and make for the horses; we ride for the Twins tonight. The King in the North is in need of a few good men!”

They bellow back at him, leaving Arya and Nymeria be and scrambling to prepare, throwing supplies back into packs they just emptied minutes before.

“You’re going to need this, little wolf,” Anguy steps up to her holding a quiver. Arya snatches it from his grip and settles it at her waist, blood racing.

Nymeria nudges her again, and Arya looks to see her wolf kneeling beside her. Grinning, she scrambles up onto her back, gripping the fur of her shoulders as Nymeria rises.

Pack, pack, pack, pack, her heart beats, and as one she and Nymeria throw their heads back and howl.

All around their camp, the wolves who follow them pick up the call, until the night is alive again with their cries, stretching for ages is every direction. Nymeria’s pack has grown with her, a host unto itself.

When all the men are settled onto their horses, Arya grins and leans forward, pressing her body fully against Nymeria’s.

Together, they begin to race through the forest, weaving between the men of the Brotherhood until she leads their party. One by one, wolves appear beside them out of the darkness. A few of the horses shy away, but they soon focus again, and men and wolves run side by side to save her brother.

* * *

The sounds of war start up just as the Twins come into view. Men screaming as they die, steel clashing against steel. Nymeria growls, a call to arms all the wolves around them pick up, until it sounds as though they are a storm descending.

Beric and Thoros echo it as well, bellowing into the night as they descend onto the camp where Stark men are fighting for their lives against the traitors. Desperate cries rise into the air as the first wolves hit the camps, tearing into flesh. Somehow, they know which men are which, and Arya can see some of the men take her pack as a sign from the Gods.

But they aren’t her goal, Robb is.

“Find Greywind,” she says into Nymeria’s ears, and they lope towards the entrance to the castle. Men attempt to rush at them as they pass, but the other wolves leap between them, lunging for throats and arms and ripping them apart.

They reach it just in time to bowl over men converging on a large cage with iron bars. Arya pulls an almost-forgotten piece of metal from her belt and nearly attacks the padlock while Nymeria rends the men who were trying to harm her kin limb from limb, into bloody pieces.

She’s out of practice with locks; it’s been so long since she had to break into someone’s stores for food. Her hands fumble more than once as the battle rages around her, but eventually it clicks.

The doors of Greywind’s prison slam open as he races past her, heading for the entrance to the castle behind them and howling desperately.

Arya remains on her own two feet and chases after him, and Nymeria keeps pace with her even though she’s more than capable of catching up with the other wolf. The second they pass into stone, another wolf joins them: Torrhen, the first to kneel.

Nymeria nudges his flank as they run, and Arya bares her teeth at him. He bares his back in a bloody grin, and all three of them burst through the doors to what appears to be a great hall just in time to see Greywind lunge at a man in Bolton colors.

Arya spins to the side and immediately draws and knocks an arrow, loosing it at a man on a balcony above them about to fire into the messy crowd around her. She draws five more in quick succession, each one striking a different man right in the chest. They all fall, one of them toppling over the railing onto one of his comrades beneath him, killing them both.

After that she takes a moment to observe the room. Greywind is fighting his way through the throng toward Robb; Nymeria and Torrhen guard his back, ripping apart any man who tries to hurt him.

The great table at the front of the room seats an old man who looks at her wolves with horrified eyes, so she fires an arrow at him as well; it strikes just as truly as the others, and when it does, many of the others in the room take up a great cry.

He must have been their lord, she thinks, as she uses their distraction to begin picking them off. The Stark men are the ones without weapons; probably peace bound for the wedding, she thinks, and snarls.

Nymeria snarls back in answer, as does Greywind; Torrhen yips around the leg he has in his jaws.

She catches sight of her mother and her blood freezes; the Lady Stark has frozen as well, staring at her with tearful eyes that blind her to the man in black creeping in from the sides. Quicker than ever before, Arya pulls another arrow out, loosing it as soon as it’s knocked, bowstring biting at the unarmored skin of her forearm.

The arrow catches the man in the eye, and her mother turns, shocked, just in time to watch his body hit stone. When his knife clatters down, Arya’s pleased to see her mother pick it up and start edging around the room to reach her. She starts moving as well, an arrow knocked loosely in her bow and her eyes darting everywhere at once.

Nymeria is bleeding from a wound in her side, and Greywind has a small dagger sticking out of his haunches, but neither of them has slowed at all. They’ve finally converged on Robb, backs to him while he clutches at the body of a woman slowly bleeding out on the floor.

Meanwhile, Torrhen has grasped a vaguely familiar man with a face like stone by the leg, pulling him toward the other wolves and bloodying him along the way. Lord Bolton, Arya thinks, as the man tries to draw a knife only to drop it as Torrhen’s jaws tighten around his calf.

She almost fires another arrow, straight through the man’s eye. But then the last man falls right next to Robb, startling him. Her brother’s eyes are wet, red, and so dangerously angry she almost gasps, but then grins instead.

As he rises, Nymeria and Greywind move with him, flanking his sides as they meet Lord Bolton in the middle of the room, some scant twelve Stark men left standing around them in various states of disarray.

“Lord Bolton,” Robb says, “I charge you with treason, murder, and conspiring to break guest right. I’ll have you executed at dawn.” His voice is as rough as Arya’s is, these days, and he looks…Well. He looks as much a wolf as she does.

Some of the other Stark men move forward to take Bolton and Torrhen snarls around his leg, startling them. “It’s alright, let them have him, Torrhen.” Arya calls out, drawing the attention of what’s left of the room.

“Arya,” her mother’s voice breaks on her name right beside her, and Arya turns to see her just as the knife drops from her hands.

She smiles, a real, happy grin, and rushes into her mother’s arms. They come around her, clutching desperately at her furs, her head; anything they can reach. Her heart clenches as Mother’s fingers start to comb through her hair.

“Oh, Arya, where did you go? Where have you been?” Mother laughs tearfully. “Arya, I missed you so fiercely! We—we all did.”

Arya snuffles quietly against her mother’s dress. “I missed you all, too. I’m so sorry!”

“Arya?” She hears Robb say faintly from across the room–and then his arms are around them both, and the wolves are pushing at their legs, nuzzling and scenting until everyone smells the same, like pack.

Pack, pack, pack, pack, her heart beats, and she feels the battle outside come to a close, the wolves victorious.

So she pulls away from Robb and Mother and cries for victory, a howl tearing its way out of her throat.

“Arya, what in the Gods’ names–” Her mother starts, but then Nymeria and Torrhen take up the call, then Greywind, and the hall around them echoes with their voices;

and then the wolves outside, muzzles and claws soaked in traitor blood, cry back to them, and once more the night is alive with the sounds of House Stark.

Robb stares at her with wide, still wet eyes and she lets her voice die long enough to give him a wolfish grin.

It startles a laugh out of him; he looks shocked and hurt at his own humor, and Arya catches his eyes straying behind her for a moment. But then he reaches out and ruffles her hair, undoing all of Mother’s good work, and says, “Only you, Arya, for gods’ sake,” and pulls her into another fierce embrace.


End file.
